


tell the survivors (the help is on the way remix)

by isadorator



Series: i hope your soul is changing [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Forgiveness, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Or not, Recovery, Sadstuck, Temporary Character Death, i can't even deny it's not, post-identity reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11614890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadorator/pseuds/isadorator
Summary: After their final battle with Hawk Moth, Marinette can't do anything but watch Adrien fall apart and put himself back together.





	tell the survivors (the help is on the way remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [sins cannot be undone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7169459) by [isadorator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isadorator/pseuds/isadorator). 



> Another fic in this AU for the 'I wrote this in one sitting because it helped me process' pile. The first fic was written without music, but this one had [Praying by Kesha](https://youtu.be/v-Dur3uXXCQ) and [Blindness by Metric](https://youtu.be/gkp8TVDmID4) playing in the background.
> 
> It's been another year. I still don't have it in me to forgive, and that's okay.

Ladybug has an instant to register Chat’s back shielding her. Then the point of Hawk Moth’s sword cane erupts from the centre, splattering her with blood.

She’s screaming even as she catches Chat, hugging him to her as his eyes flutter shut and his breath stops.

She’s silent as she lays his dead body on the ground and lunges for Hawk Moth, bloodied sword limp as he stares at the boy he murdered. One hit in the jaw from the Lucky Charm in her hand—a kettlebell—and Hawk Moth goes down.

Ladybug rips the Butterfly Miraculous off his suit and barely stops herself bringing the kettlebell down on his head.

Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste.

Adrien’s father.

Ladybug drops the Lucky Charm to the side, using her free hand to drag Gabriel up by his collar. The edges of the Butterfly Miraculous dig into her clenched fist.

He looks at her with blank eyes. She can’t stop shaking.

( _Adrien was murdered by his own father._ )

She heaves, tossing him at the feet of the police officers who have been watching their battle from afar. Then she picks up the kettlebell, heavier than anything she’s ever lifted.

( _Chat’s life is in her hands_.)

“MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!”

  


* * *

  


Chat is alive and fragile in a way that prickles Ladybug’s skin. It feels wrong to see her brave, energetic kitty as an ashen statue, his gaze so distant, it’s beyond her reach.

He barely reacts when she carries him back to his room, when she lays him out on his bed, when Plagg cries over him in relief. Tears well at the edges of her eyes. She doesn’t know what to _do_.

Adrien looks at the ceiling with the same blank eyes as his father, and Marinette stays.

  


* * *

  


It’s getting late, and Marinette needs to be home.

( _It’s getting late, and Marinette can’t stop thinking that this isn’t Adrien’s home._ )

Gathering what courage she has left, Ladybug invites Adrien to stay with her family.

He deserves better than to stay here in the place he was hurt, that hurts him even now, and she’s _useless_ —

Adrien shakes his head.

“I need to be alone,” he tells her, his voice cracking and wet.

“O-okay,” says Ladybug because that’s all she can say. “Text me later?”

“Yeah,” he says.

  


* * *

  


That night, after returning the Butterfly Miraculous to Master Fu, Marinette stares at her phone.

_So I’m emancipated now. Father’s idea._

She keeps staring, staring, staring, and concentrates on breathing.

Adrien was his own man now.

( _His father threw him away_.)

He could make his own decisions about his life.

( _His father threw him away_.)

His father would rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life and could never hurt her Adrien again.

( _His father threw him away_.)

Marinette curls up on her bedspread, phone still clutched in her hands. Downstairs, Papa is closing up the bakery with Mama. Her warm Papa, who played games with her and taught her to decorate cakes and held her when Chloé made her cry.

“It’s not fair,” she chokes out, and Tikki nestles in her hair, whispering nothings as she wills her trembling fingers to type.

_call me_

_please_

  


* * *

  


The world goes from wrong to insane as Marinette is hounded by her schoolmates and Adrien is hounded by the media.

For the next two days, he refuses to talk to anyone. Not a word to her, to his friends, and Marinette walks around with a sick knot low in her stomach. It loosens when Nino proposes that they—Nino, Marinette, and Alya—break past the crowds howling for blood and storm the mansion itself.

The plan goes off without a hitch. At least, until they meet Adrien.

( _“He hurt all of you,” says Adrien._

 _“He hurt you too,” says Alya._ )

He ends up burying his head in Marinette’s shoulder, weak laughter folding into gasping sobs. Marinette runs her fingers through his hair and remembers how he powerless she felt holding him as he died.

Later, when the movie they put on is winding down, Marinette and Adrien slip away from their sleeping friends to talk in the kitchen.

“I found this in…in his office,” says Adrien, showing Marinette the Peacock Miraculous.

( _She should have smashed the kettlebell into Hawk Moth’s face._ )

  


* * *

  


Marinette hovers over Adrien when he comes to school the next day, sticking close enough to hold his hand and pull him into a quiet corner when needed. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Luckily, most of their classmates leave Adrien alone, running interference with the rest of the student body or offering small gestures of sympathy.

After school, they return the Peacock Miraculous to Master Fu together. Master Fu and Marinette watch Adrien as his eyes stay glued to the Butterfly Miraculous. When all the unclaimed Miraculous are tucked away again, Adrien blinks and twists his lips.

“If you’re free,” Master Fu begins suddenly, “I have a garden on the roof that needs weeding.”

Marinette takes Adrien’s hand. He grips it almost painfully tight.

“I have a photoshoot,” Adrien mumbles.

He doesn’t move.

“We’re free,” Marinette finally says, tugging them both up the stairs.

  


* * *

  


“Are you sure about this?” Marinette asks a week later as Adrien brushes his hair in his bathroom. Tikki and Plagg huddle together on top of the dresser, looking down at them with solemn eyes. “You don’t have to go.”

( _He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness_.)

“I’m…just visiting,” says Adrien. He reaches into the cabinets under the sink to pull out a tub of gel. He uses it to style his hair from fluffy Chat Noir to smooth Adrien Agreste. “Father’s in jail. He can’t hurt anyone. Not anymore.”

( _He hurt you, Adrien._ )

Marinette draws close enough to pull him into a hug. He startles but quickly hugs her back, kissing her forehead. She rests her ear on his chest, listening to the steady drum of his heart.

( _He won’t change._ )

“Are you sure?” she asks again, closing her eyes.

“I’m sure,” he answers.

When Chat crawls in through her balcony window later that day, shivering with the same blank stare of his cooling corpse, Marinette folds around him. As if she could somehow protect him.

( _He doesn’t deserve you._ )

  


* * *

  


Adrien starts coming over more and more. He has his own toothbrush at Marinette’s and Nino’s. He learns to make penne at Alya’s mother’s elbow. Their group takes the train to Versailles, spending the morning in the palace and the afternoon in the gardens.

Something unclenches in Marinette as Adrien tries different things. None of them have anything to with his father’s failing company or the empty mansion that is now Paris’ most expensive storage unit.

One day, when she returns from helping out her parents at the bakery, Adrien is waiting for her in her room. There’s a new layer of papier-mâché on her sculpture for art class, and Marinette quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Papier-mâché fairy,” he whispers loudly, the upward twitch of his lips giving him away. “They always leave a paper trail.”

Marinette picks up one of the pillows on her lounge and throws it at him as he laughs.

  


* * *

  


The prison guard glares at Marinette as she waits outside the gate, and Marinette ignores everything but the sight of Adrien walking out from his visit. She waves her hand, and the tired hunch of his shoulders disappears into stiff-backed surprise.

“What are you doing here?” he asks as he takes her hand. Marinette presses a soft kiss to his cheek.

“I thought you might need some company,” she says. Adrien’s eyes are red rimmed, but not blank, and Marinette feels ridiculously grateful.

He sniffs and flashes her a weak grin. “Can’t resist all this, huh?”

“Never,” Marinette agrees, and they slowly make their way back home. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Adrien looks away to think, staring up at the sky.

“Do you think it’s stupid to try talking to him?” he asks her.

( _Yes._ )

“Do you think he’s changed?” Marinette asks instead, pushing away her rage.

“No,” says Adrien. “He said he loves me. That he never meant to hurt me.”

( _He_ murdered _you._ )

“But he doesn’t seem to think what he did was wrong,” Adrien continues. “None of it.”

Marinette thinks back to the years of bullying from Chloé and fighting against Hawk Moth. It’s nothing compared to what Adrien’s been through. Even thinking of that final battle, that awful day, brings with it a creeping sense of horror, tainting her worldview with the crippling feelings of helplessness and hate.

Adrien saved her life, and she couldn’t even help him with this.

“I can’t decide what to think for you,” says Marinette. “I’m sorry.”

Marinette watches him as he watches his feet.

“It doesn’t feel…I can’t _not_ try to fix things with him,” he says. He squeezes her hand. “He’s my father. I can’t abandon him.”

Leaning her head against his shoulder, Marinette closes her eyes to stop the tears threatening to spill and squeezes back.

( _He never deserved you._ )

“I know,” she says, resigned.


End file.
